John M. Stahl's Imitation of Life, from 1934, is a melodrama that still packs an emotional wallop. It is a good example of what Imogen Sara Smith calls Stahl's "juxtaposition of formal, elegant framing and explosive emotion." The film is inferior to Douglas Sirk's version and features a number of cringe worthy elements: Warren William, cheap backdrops and racial condescension. Nevertheless, Stahl provides many sublime moments. He gets one of the warmest and most three dimensional performances from Claudette Colbert whose scenes with Louise Beavers are the highlight of the movie. The shot of Beavers and Colbert using separate staircases after a tete a tete, Beavers going down to the basement and Colbert moving on up, is an apt encapsulation of the ongoing tragedy of American race relations. A fine, and for the time, brave film.
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